Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I do not know what planet the Minister lives on, coming in here and making a statement to the effect that the Government is making progress on waiting lists despite the evidence. That evidence is not just coming from me or the Sinn Féin benches, it is contained in the report published this morning, which states very clearly that the numbers on waiting lists in the State have increased by 6,200 in the past month. Since the Taoiseach assumed office, the overall number has increased by 20,000. The report is very clear that we have the largest number of patients on waiting lists ever recorded in the history of the State.

The Government tries to slice and dice the figures and present them in a way that makes it seem that great improvements are being made. The only thing that can be relied on is the NTPF, but we know that is a privatisation of the system and it will never work. What we need is investment in the public service. What we need is proper value for money. What the Government is doing with regard to the NTPF is siphoning off taxpayers' money into private health care that provides for routine and simple procedures which should be carried out in public hospitals. These are procedures that cost three times more than if they were carried out in a public hospital, but there is an ideological blind spot whereby the Government believes that underinvestment in public services and dishing it out to private services is okay.

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